


Saving Pride

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [1]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Gen, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-03
Updated: 2011-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briar gazed at the copper crescents spread over his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

Briar gazed at the copper crescents spread over his hands. Lark had given them to him; he imagined she must have given the same to the girls. But they had probably held coins they hadn’t stolen before. He hadn’t.

            “What are you gazing at, boy?” Rosethorn’s tone was brusque but faintly curious.

            His stare didn’t leave his new coins; it said much, given he usually stared at Rosethorn. “Coins.”

            Rosethorn reached out. “Let me see.”

            “No!” he yelled, clutching them to his chest with tight fists. “They’re mine!”

            One of her eyebrows rose slowly. She crossed her arms and affirmed, “They are. And will remain so.” He opened his hands and spread them again, but she merely touched each one with her finger without lifting it. “How many did you count?”

            “Fourteen.”

            “Close.” She pointed at the last, resting in the crease of his thumb and palm. “Fifteen copper crescents. Not too bad for a runt. Where did you get them?”

            “I didn’t nick ‘em, if that’s what you mean!” His eyebrows furrowed together and his fingers began to curl; Rosethorn halted their movement. Briar sighed. “But you didn’t. Lark gave ‘em to me. En’t never been _given_ nothin’, not really. And I’m not a runt, I’m a Roa—I’m a _Briar_.”

            “That you are.” Rosethorn’s voice still sounded stern, but her eyes seemed lighter, like they were sparkling or something. And her faced looked softer—more like a leaf and less like a trunk—when he mentioned Lark. “Putting them in a piggybank?”

            Briar gave the woman the best “you’re cracked” look he could conceive. “Why would I go puttin’ coins in a _pig?_ That’s just daft.”

            Rosethorn cackled. “That part’s the metaphor. We farmers used to put money, time and effort into our best pigs so when we broke them—” she drew her finger across her neck and Briar understood, “—we’d get lots of money out of them.” Her eyes were sparkling again, but all narrowed like she was having a laugh at a kid who fell down stairs. “We gave children little pig-shaped containers for money and when they were full, the pig was broken. Out the money came again.”

            “Why not keep it somewhere with sense, like under a pillow or in a pouch?”

            “Temptation,” Rosethorn responded immediately, grinning. “Then you spend it right away on stupid things instead of saving for the better, useful possessions.”

            “That sounds naff.” But Briar considered it for a moment. “Where’d you get ‘em, those…piggybacks?”

            “Piggybanks, and the market. But I’ll whip something similar up for you—if you promise to _use_ it.” Her eyebrow soared up again.

            Briar scuffed his toe and pocketed the coins. “Yeah, alright, sure. En’t got no Thief Lord to take it off me, might as well wait for somethin’ good.”

            Rosethorn looked at him funny, like the way his Mum had before she’d died, when he managed to nick her some medicine—even though it didn’t work. It was the look his Thief Lord hardly ever had. Pride, or something. Rosethorn grinned and walked off, calling, “Lark!” Briar thought he heard some combination of ‘Anderran’, ‘parents’, ‘allowance’ and ‘don’t spoil them’ but didn’t catch the meaning and declared it more of Rosethorn’s nonsense-dedicate talk.

            Later that night he discovered that Tris kept hers in a special locked box, Sandry in a dainty hidden bag and Daja in a secret pocket of her voodoo-box-trap. And he didn’t even have to steal it to know, he just eked it out of with innocence and charm. They asked him where he was gonna keep his money.

            “A pig.”

            They stared at him like _he_ was the daft one. Girls didn’t understand nuthin’.

            ‘Cept grown ones, he decided later, when it turned out Lark—and maybe Rosethorn was involved—was giving them the coins _every week_ when they were good with chores, to spend at the marketplace once a month. Briar hardly bought anything—he put most of his in the ceramic bulb-shaped container Rosethorn gave him—but once he had his _shakkan_ , he was able to buy himself a whole kit for it. Tris looked impressed; Daja whistled at the metals. Sandry looked confused, but that was to be expected, ‘cause she grew up a _Bag_.

            (He even caught Rosethorn using the fine-twig scissors, once, when she didn’t think he was lookin’. He thought he really must have done well, then.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C: Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
